Frenzy 1

Canyons are cool. These are deep, steep, narrow, dark, mysterious, and ... unexpected. Situated between two significant mountain ranges, you travel across a relatively flat, large valley, and then wham! - sheer walls with drops over 2000 feet are beneath your feet. Other canyons are deeper, wider, larger, but no other canyon combines the steepness, depth, and narrowness of this approximately 6 million year old gash in the earth.



At the bottom of this gorge, called the Narrows, the canyon walls creep together until they are no more than 40 feet across. In the years before the river that carved the passage was dammed upstream, spring melts would drive the river through this gap with the force of 2.75 million horsepower - enough to fling house-sized boulders about like pebbles. This force was critical in carving the canyon, since the walls are composed of Pre-Cambrian rock - some of the hardest rock on the planet.



Fissures in the Pre-Cambrian rock allowed magma to seep up through the walls during a major volcanic epoch that formed the mountain ranges to the south and east of the canyon area. The pink stripes in this wall, known as the Painted Wall, are cooled lava that worked it's way up from the fiery depths deep below the uplifted rock. This cliff is over 2000 feet high from top to bottom - the highest cliff in the state in which it resides.



This pic probably won't help you much in identifying the locale, but wow - the sunset makes the lichen-covered boulders look like they're on fire. Gorgeous.



OK - should be a breeze to identify with the clues and pics above. Enjoy!